Evaluating Porny’s baby shower

Oh look. PEOPLE Magazine has exclusive photos from Jessica Simpson’s baby shower on Sunday. They’ve released one shot on the website as a promotion for the rest of the images in this week’s issue featuring Adam Levine and Blake Shelton on the cover. Which is why, as I reported on Monday, the pictures from this event were being shopped for only $90,000. Turns out that’s the value of this particular exclusive set when it doesn’t make the front page.

If PEOPLE paid for the shower photos, it’s a good assumption that they’re the ones who’ve secured the rights to the first photos of the baby. As previously mentioned, I’m told the rate for those was a million dollars. And a million dollars is a guaranteed cover.

How many copies have to sell to make it worth it? I never understand it when people try to explain it to me but in the end, obviously, it has to be a justifiable business decision. PEOPLE has invested a million dollars into Jessica Simpson’s child because it believes that Jessica Simpson’s child will yield big returns.

In that sense, Jessica Simpson’s child kinda belongs to PEOPLE Magazine too, doesn’t she? The part of her that is a commodity? To be bought and traded? Yes, she does. We’re still a few weeks from her birth and already this kid is working so hard. Pretty soon, fetuses will be issued their own social insurance numbers. And THAT, if they’re creative enough, is how they can really make a case on a contentious debate that has been raging for years. Because as soon as the unborn child starts making money, it becomes an argument that’s a lot more tangible. Who’s protecting the financial rights of the unborn child? And if it has financial rights, can it be considered an independent entity? I mean, when you start making and having babies as a career move, at some point, someone’s going to make the argument that you might not be the best person to manage your baby’s career. Click here for more from Porny’s baby shower in PEOPLE.